NEW TREATMENTS HALT MELANOMA FROM SPREADING

Aussie researchers successfully ‘stop disease’ in late stage patients

SYDNEY

RESEARCHERS say a combination of new treatments can stop the world’s deadliest form of skin cancer, melanoma, in its tracks and halt its spread to other organs.

Results from two international drug trials conducted by the Sydney-based Melanoma Institute Australia have proved successful in preventing the disease spreading in stage-three patients whose tumours had been surgically removed.

Until now, these patients were at a high risk (40 to 70 per cent) of the disease becoming advanced and fatal.

“Results from these clinical trials suggest we can stop the disease in its tracks, effectively preventing it from spreading and saving lives,” the institute’s medical director Georgina Long said in research published in the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday.

One in every three cancers diagnosed is a skin cancer, according to the World Health Organisation, with Australia having among the highest incidences of melanoma in the world. One Australian dies from it every five hours.

While 90 per cent of people can be cured by having the primary cancer removed through surgery, it spreads in the other 10 per cent because it is detected too late.

The researchers conducted two 12-month trials, one immunotherapy-based and the other with targeted therapies. Both proved successful in preventing the disease spreading.

“These clinical trials show we now have ammunition to prevent melanoma spreading and progressing, which until now was a critical area of disease behaviour where we had no control,” said Long.

“This will change how melanoma is treated around the world, as we no longer have to passively wait to see if the melanoma spreads.” AFP